Sunday, November 25, 2018

I wrote this review on my iPhone while waiting for a flight and had originally posted this on cruisersforum.com but only got one reply. Just yesterday, I got the idea of submitting it to some of the cruising magazines for publication, however, a search revealed that there are already many reviews of the book published. I like my review better.

Ruthie with Jimmy Cornell

While we were at the United
StatesBoat ShowinAnnapolis October, 2017, we had the good fortune to meetJimmyCornellat theHydrovanebooth. We purchased his book, 200,000 Miles,
had him autograph it, chatted for a couple of seconds, took aphotoand got out of the way as a long line of other
cruisers were waiting to meet him as well. This is my take on the book.

Most cruisers knowJimmyCornellas the author of World Cruising
Routes, what many in the cruising community consider the Bible of guidebooks. Our own copy of WCR is badly worn, many of the pages
dog-eared, some pages stained with spilled coffee, lots of notes in the
margins, etc. Whenever we're planning apassage, it's our first reference - you would think that as
many times as we've referred to it, we'd have it memorized by now. Of course,
we haven't always agreed with the advice in WCR (it suggests giving the north
end ofMadagascara 20-mile wide berth - it would have been much better
to keep 'one foot on the beach') but we largely credit its advice for making
ourcircumnavigationfree from hazardous conditions - that and good
luck. Even if you're not considering acircumnavigation, the book is an interesting read. But, this review
isn't about WCR.

200,000 Miles is part autobiography and part 'how to' manual. He
describes his humble beginnings in Communist Romania, his father who challenged
the Party and his fascination with the sea for which he had no explanation.
Born with both brains and brawn, he managed to get to the UK, where he
met and married Gwenda, who bore them a son and a daughter. A career with the
BBC allowed him some freedom of movement and while thechildrenwere still young, he bought Aventura, a smallketchon which they completed a 7-year circumnavigation, the
first of his three. This was well before the advent of electronicnavigationand Jimmywould
always announce their position and distance covered in the last 24 hours at
lunch - when they launched their cruising website, it wasJimmy's son who suggested they
call it 'noonsite'.

It was fun to read about many of the same places
we had visited:Vanuatu, Suwarrow,Thailand,Chagos,South Africaand St. Helena to name a few. However, his
description of cruising Antarctica was enough
for me to slam the book shut, look my wife in the eye and say, "We're
going!" Whereas I found some of his descriptions of places to be a little
tedious (" . . . and we were warmly welcomed by the people there . . .
"), his vivid descriptions of cruising Antarctica
were captivating, compelling and fantastic. My wife and I were fortunate to
have been able tocruisePatagonia aboard some friend'sboat(got to sail around Cape Horn, go ashore, meet the
lighthouse keeper and his wife, have our passports stamped) but JC's
description of Antarctica makes me want to make that our next destination.

I didn't find his trip through the NorthwestPassageto be nearly as interesting but I was able to still
learn much from it (aDieselenginewill run on Jet-Afuelalthough JC added 2-strokemotoroil).

He occasionally went on a rant - he finds it
incredulous that so many cruisers no longer carry papercharts(guilty) and that he thinks it's completely
unnecessary to have an outboardmotorof more than 5hp (we have a 5hpoutboardbut we also have a 15hp - guess which one we use
most?).

It was almost a relief to
learn that Jimmy Cornell isn’t a ‘purist’:
When he realized that he was running late to make the attempt at the Northwest Passage, he put Aventura IV on a freighter in order to arrive at the jumping off
point on time. Whereas he’s capable of
undertaking most repairs himself, he doesn’t hesitate to hire mechanics, laborers,
etc to do the work.

Throughout the book are his suggestions in a
blue field (titled ‘Tips’) and I found I agreed with most of them (paperchartsnotwithstanding) and even gave me validation for some
of my laziness - ifJimmyCornellstores hisboatwith the main left bent to the boom, so can I. Also, there are lots of quotes from people,
some famous, some not. Only go on trips with people you love. –Ernest
Hemingway

There is a long chapter about cruising rallies
and JC rightfully takes credit for establishing them as a viable way tocruise. He doesn't explain well how he was able to organize
so many of theeventsthat participants of his rallies were able to enjoy
but I was envious as I read about the meetings with mayors, governors and
kings. Still, it's hard for me to imagine a satisfying circumnavigation in 17
months - we're well into 7 years and we're not finished yet (there's still Antarctica!).

The photographs in the book, of which there are
many, are breathtaking. It made me realize that despite the thousands of
photographs that we've taken, it hasn't been enough. Perhaps it's the
photographs of Antarctica that has me swooning
but, regardless, most of the other photos are likely to light a fire under the
most sedentary cruiser.

Granted, I was predisposed to liking the book
before I bought it - World Cruising Routes has been a big part of our
circumnavigation – but, nonetheless, I found 200,000 Miles to be a
worthwhile read, if not great literature. Highly recommended. Available on amazon.com.

Monday, November 12, 2018

While
we were still in the Bahamas,
were ‘discussing’ our route to Jamaica. We had wanted to visit Cuba but our insurance carrier specifically
excluded coverage for Cuba, Venezuela and Honduras. There was no argument about whether to
transit the Windward Passage but there was ‘discussion’ on whether we should
head for Kingston (on the south side of Jamaica) or to Port Antonio on the
north shore. The main advantage, in my
point of view, was that Kingston offered a
better angle at which to cross the western Caribbean
– if we were on the north side, we wouldn’t be able to turn south until we
reached the western end of the island, which is about 78°West. This would mean a close reach all the way to Panama with
beam seas. The other side of the
‘discussion’ was that Kingston
was notoriously dangerous for tourists.
In the end, it was ‘decided’ that we’d make landfall at Port Antonio. On board for this passage was our good
friend, Christie, whom we met when Ruthie was in university.

Though the Windward Passage is well
known for squeezing the trade winds between Cuba
and Haiti,
our passage through there was so light that we had to motor most of the
way. Arriving at dawn, we steered into
the well-protected harbor
of Port Antonio, past the
rarely-used cruise ship terminal and into the small but nice Errol Flynn
Marina, where the eager-to-please staff helped tie us up to the non-floating
concrete docks. Once the marina office
was open, we checked in with them and they made arrangements for Customs and
Immigration to come to the boat. A man
on the dock sold us a Jamaican courtesy flag.
The other yachts at the marina were flying country flags from all over
the world, a part of cruising that we had missed while in the US and the Bahamas.

The hills surrounding the harbor
were dark green with thick tropical jungle and the sounds of construction,
crowing roosters, squealing school girls and traffic created a constant
din. We were approached by Famous Man,
an elderly man who poled a lashed-together bamboo raft around the marina,
taking orders for fresh fruit and fish.
We ordered bananas. Famous Man
had dreadlocks down to his waist and very few teeth.

Once Customs and Immigration had
cleared us in, we took the short walk into the center of town and followed our
traditional routine that we almost always follow when arriving at a new
country: First, find an ATM that looks
relatively safe, second, buy a local SIM for our mobile phones and third, find
a grocery store. The ATM is usually not
too difficult but buying a SIM can often be confusing. The line at the DigiCell store was long and
once we made it to the counter, we made few friends in the line behind us as it
seemed to take a very long time before we had completed our transaction. The center of town could have been in any
country with a developing economy – few modern buildings and many buildings
were in need of repair. As we walked
through the streets, we kind of stuck out among the crowd. Instead of the laid-back atmosphere we often
found in many part of the Caribbean, here it
seemed like most people were focused on their tasks. Still, everyone was very friendly and many
people approached us, trying to sell us various things. Christie bought a couple of home-ripped
CDs. I had several people stop me and
look me right in the eye, their heads cocked a little to one side and say, “Are
you finding EVERYTHING you’re looking for?”.
I didn’t bother explaining that I come from California, where the ganja is legal and
very strong. Besides, we keep zero
cannabis on the boat – it’s too much of a liability in some countries.

Our Lonely Planet guide book for Jamaica said that the very best jerk chicken in
all of Jamaica
was in Port Antonio and we were able to find the place without trouble. It was a small, v-shaped building with a
small window at which to place an order.
Through this window you could see out behind the building where a large,
home-made barbecue was belching smoke and an old, heavily-perspiring man was
tending the meats cooking. The smell
kicked our salivary glands into high gear and the chicken was so good that we
ordered from this place every day we were in Port Antonio.

The open air market had a fabulous
collection of fruits, vegetables, eggs, spices and other odds and ends. Again, everyone one was very friendly to us,
frequently offering us samples and willingly smiling when we asked for a photo.

The marina office arranged a car
and driver to take us to Ochos Rios, a wide, shallow river that flows through Jamaica. Guides pole lashed-together bamboo rafts
through the jungle while the tourists sit back.
However, after a while, I asked the guide poling our raft if we could
change places. So, he sat back while I
tried to pole us along and I quickly found out that it wasn’t as easy as it
looked. After running us aground, my
guide took over. We stopped for lunch at
a planned spot and had a surprisingly good meal of curried goat and vegetables that
was heated over small wood fires, the outsides of the pots thick with black
soot that had accumulated over the years.

Discovery Bay

In order to leave Port Antonio, we
still had to clear out with Customs and Immigration, even though we were going
to another port in Jamaica. We had an easy sail over to DiscoveryBay
(we had cleared out to Montego Bay but stopped for the night in DiscoveryBay) and I was a little disappointed
that the bay was as rolly as it was. The
loud music blasting from one of the shore-side cantinas didn’t help me
appreciate the bay any more. But we only
stayed one night and the next day we sailed into Montego
Bay.

Montego Bay Yacht Club has two docks
for Med-mooring but it seemed expensive
and a little dodgy at best. Besides,
with Rutea’s davits hanging over the
stern, Med-mooring loses a lot of its appeal.
We anchored just off the yacht club but very close to the cruise ship
terminal, which was busy with traffic of the behemoth ships. The yacht club charged us a fee for anchoring. The following morning we were up early to
talk with Chris Parker about our passage to Panama.

Chris Parker runs a weather
forecasting service out of Florida for yachts
on the East Coast of the US
and the Caribbean. He broadcasts his forecasts on single
side-band frequencies and, if you subscribe to his service, you can ask
questions of him. We have been listening
to Chris Parker for years and his patience amazes me. Time and again I have heard boaters call into
him and ask for a specific forecast for which he had just described to the
previous caller in great detail. But,
Chris, without skipping a beat or his voice betraying any frustration with
repeating the same lengthy forecast, goes into the same detail all over
again. He is thorough – almost to a
fault. I waited for an opportunity for
the radio traffic to clear so I could ask Chris about our passage to Panama. We had a good, clear signal and I could hear
him thinking. He paused and then said,
“I don’t want to freak you out . . .”.
As long as we’ve been listening to Chris Parker, we had never heard him
say those words together. He went
through his forecast for us and ended it by saying, “If I were you, I’d leave
sooner rather than later.” It took
Ruthie and me about two seconds to decide that we would leave the following
day. Our friend, Christie, had a flight
booked for two days later so she had to scramble to find a hotel for one night. Ruthie and I began going through our
off-shore check list, checking out with Jamaican Customs and Immigration, a
quick final provisioning and preparing a first-night-out meal.

We left the following morning,
amidst numerous squalls full of thunder and lightning. Once clear of South Negril Point, the wind
filled in from the southeast and the seas built to about 3 meters. We settled in for the 500+ mile passage.

About Rutea

Rutea was built in 1984 by Conyplex in Mendemblik, Holland. A small brass plaque says that she's hull Number 9 but on the Conyplex website www.contestyachts.com there's no mention of them building that many. She's designed by Dick Zaal, who designed most of Conyplex's earlier boats. The brochure says that she's 48' overall with a 14'6" beam and she draws 6'. Her cast iron bolted-on fin keel weighs 12,000 pounds and she is supposed to displace slightly over 37,000 pounds but she's never been one to watch her weight and, ahem, she's gained more than a few pounds since we bought her in 1996. Her ketch rig sports Profurl furlers for the jib/genoa and the staysail. The main has a very tall aspect as does the mizzen. All of her winches are made by Enkes although I did add a Harken self-tailing for the main halyard. She uses an unusual reel winch that's equipped with Spectra rope for furling the genoa. There's a running backstay on the mizzen mast and there are no forward lowers on the main mast. The head stay is Dyform.

I replaced the original Volvo MD40A six-cylinder diesel with a Beta Marine 90 and I've been very happy with it although it puts out nowhere near 90 HP - probably 70 is more like it. Regardless, it's adequate and very economical on fuel. I also replaced the original Westerbeke 6kw genset with a single-cylinder Kubota diesel that drives a 150-amp alternator. Since we switched over to 12-volt refrigeration, we no longer have any 110-volt appliances on board, other than the water heater. Since the new Beta Marine engine has two big alternators (one is 100 amps and the other 175), we have our Victron inverter/charger power the water heater when we're under power (we don't have engine coolant circulate through the water heater).

Rutea's layout down below is different from many boats of her size. Aft of her water-tight forward bulkhead is a 'wet' head, complete with two sinks. Aft of that are two cabins, both with bunk beds on either side of the boat and each has a door to the forward head. This was perfect when we cruised with our family as our 3 children had their own quarters. The main saloon occupies the area aft of the forward cabins and her dinette and settees are large enough to seat 10 people (we've had many a memorable meal here!). Under the cabin sole are two 90-gallon stainless steel fuel tanks. Under the settee seats on either side is a 120-gallon water tank, also made of stainless steel. On the starboard side, aft of the dinette is the foward-facing nav station and on the port side is the galley where we have a 7 cubic foot refrigerator and a 5 cubic foot freezer. Aft of the nav station, on the starboard side is my work shop. This was originally designed to be another stateroom but the original owner had Conyplex convert it into a work shop, complete with a heavy-duty work bench and a massive 6" vise. I sometimes spend days at a time in there. Many a visiting cruiser has eyed with envy, drooled with desire and blatantly coveted my work shop! I have access to the engines from there. On the port side, aft of the galley, is another 'wet' head. Aft of that is the aft cabin, which has a settee as well as a full double-size berth. Aft of the aft cabin or 'owner's stateroom' as it's called on many boats, is her spacious lazarette, which is where the water heater and diesel-fired boiler are located. Bolted to the back of the aft deck and overhanging the transom are her Simpson davits (I sometimes tell people that the boat was built around those davits - they're very substantial with a capacity of 250 Kgs). Resting on top of the davits are Ruthie's roto-molded kayak and above that are two 215-watt solar panels. Hanging off the davits is our Aqua Pro dinghy and it's 15-horsepower Honda outboard.

On deck, starting at the bow, is Rutea's primary anchor, a Bruce 30 kilogram that's connected to the 350' of 3/8" Hi-Test chain with a Wasi Powerball. The anchor and chain are deployed and retrieved by a Lofrans Progress II windlass. In the anchor locker lives another Bruce 20kg anchor that's connected to 50' of 3/8" Hi-Test chain and 150' of 1" MegaBraid rope. Also in the anchor locker, amongst many other things, is the 18' Para-Tech sea anchor with it's dedicated 100' of 1" single-braid rope. Moving aft is Rutea's main mast, which has double spreaders, four Enkes winches and one Harken self-tailing winch. The mast is made by Selden as are the two heavy spinnaker poles. The tracks for the staysail and the genoa are stainless steel. In the cockpit are five more Enke winches and a Harken mechanical backstay adjuster. The mizzen mast is also quite substantial and has three Enkes winches on it. The turning blocks are stainless steel. The steering system on Rutea is the Whitlock Mamba system using a torque tube and a push-pull rod. The compass in the binnacle is made by Sestrel.

Even though we try to keep up on Rutea's appearance, she's still starting to show her age. I replaced her portlights (all twelve of them) and Ruthie has taken over the job of varnishing her brightwork. In 2000 we removed her teak decks and replaced it with painted fiberglass. Much less maintenance! She's what I call a 200-foot boat: She looks great from 200 feet!

Regardless, the best part of Rutea is the way she handles. While she's not the fastest filly in the fleet, she can cover a respectable amount of distance in a day. Her sail plan allows her to be easily balanced to the point where the autopilot has very little correcting to do. Her sails are all made by North except her spinnakers are Dutch-made.

Rutea’s electronics package includes radar, chartplotter, AIS, sounder and sailing instruments - all made by Garmin. Her radios are all old but they work well. Her Icom M802 SSB has been modified to use ham frequencies.